This week on the website- The Whitney Biennial, Andy Warhol’s birthday and a trip to his museum in Pittsburgh, an LA gallery moves to the desert, and with the sad passing of Shelley Duvall I start watching a few of her films- beginning with Robert Altman’s 3 Women.
First, Music Monday’s selection was Honey from PACKS’ album Melt the Honey, released in January of 2024.
The Whitney Biennial, Even Better Than The Real Thing closed on Sunday. The contemporary art exhibition includes artists working in a variety of mediums and several creating work that references social issues. It’s always a large show and this year it included 71 artists. The museum’s website has a list of all of them and images of their work.
Below are a few of the ones I selected (more here).
Isaac Julien’s impressive video installation takes place across five screens and “reflects on the life and thought of Alain Locke (1885–1954), philosopher, educator, and cultural critic of the Harlem Renaissance (played by André Holland) who urged members of the African diaspora to embrace African art in order to reclaim their cultural heritage”.
The inclusion of sculptures by Richmond Barthé (1901–1989) and Matthew Angelo Harrison (b. 1985) adds yet another dimension. It works on many different levels, while the images keep the viewer engaged as the story unfolds all around them.
For Lotus L. Kang’s installation In Cascades, she hung sheets of photographic film that are gradually transformed by the light in the gallery in a process she refers to as “tanning”. Looking at the results makes you think about the way environments are gradually changing us as well.
Suzanne Jackson has a unique process for creating her work (pictured below).
From the museum-
Suzanne Jackson made these suspended paintings without canvas, slowly building up many layers of acrylic, detritus, gel medium, and objects from the natural world, including seeds from her garden in Savannah, Georgia. Jackson has been experimenting with acrylic paint since the 1960s. “It’s painting another way,” she explains. “I don’t call it collage because it’s not another material. It’s all paint—acrylic on acrylic. And it’s suspended: paint suspended in space. . . . The paint becomes an armature for itself.” This “armature” is not fixed, however; Jackson thinks of the paintings as living things and is very open to the fact that they are malleable and will reshape. The layered paint seems to have a kind of agency and an ability to change independently. Looking at its iridescent quality up close creates an afterimage—a lasting mental image that continues even when a viewer has shifted their gaze away.
There wasn’t a lot of photography in this exhibition but B. Ingrid Olson’s installation of her photographic work was balanced well by her sculptures. The layers in the photographs, mirroring each other within one work, capture how you can never truly reproduce the same moment in time. The sculptures represent containers for body parts, and you can imagine them on the various ones found in the images.
Being in the desert, water is often on my mind. This week’s mural Gift, by Lili Yuan, refers to the water issues in Tampa Bay. The mural was created for the 2020 edition of SHINE Mural Festival in St. Pete, Florida.
Here’s what she had to say about the work-
“With millions of gallons of wastewater spilled around Tampa Bay in recent years, I chose to depict an obscured female surrounded by water to convey an implicit narrative that the water and humanity are more tightly coupled than ever. After going through many ideas, I went for a simplified design because the value of water itself is precious enough to resonate. Holding water in hand symbolizes a precious gift from nature as water sustains all life no matter big or small; and the round shape represents nature’s best gift – our mother earth.
Meanwhile, I chose the Chinese idiom “上善若水“, which means “Be like water, as water stays humble while benefiting all”. It shows the importance of water and strikes a chord with humans whom should all be loving nature and preserving our precious water resources.”- Lili Yuan
The desert cities make up for their lack of bodies of water with an abundance of swimming pools.
On a recent walk around Palm Desert, I was happy to discover that Skidmore Contemporary Art, recently moved from Bergamot Station in Santa Monica to El Paseo. For their current show, the group exhibition, Summer Splash, eleven California-based artists, including Melissa Chandon and Kory Alexander (whose paintings are pictured above), capture the energy of the season.
It’s always interesting to see films from the past that take place where you are located in the present. After hearing the sad news of Shelley Duvall’s passing and looking through her body of work, 3 Women, which takes place in Desert Hot Springs and Palm Springs, seemed like a good place to start catching up on some of her films that I’d never seen.
Released in 1977, and based on a dream writer/director Robert Altman had, it follows Duvall and Sissy Spacek as their lives and identities intertwine in the California desert. Later a third woman played by Janice Rule, becomes more important in the pair’s world.
Using reflections, water, mirrors, mirrored actions, and twins, Altman creates a mysterious space for these women to inhabit.
Seeing these twins also reminded me of the twins from one of Duvall’s most famous movies, The Shining, released in 1980.
Adding to the unsettling energy are a series of murals created by artist Bodhi Wind (Charles Kuklis). I searched for awhile to find more information on Kuklis but, with the exception of the website linked, there isn’t much besides these murals, some album covers, and his early death. On the positive side, his work is immortalized in the film and plays a vital role in creating its atmosphere.
3 Women is beautifully shot with great performances and an ambiguous ending that makes it good for a rewatch.
It was Andy Warhol’s birthday on August 6th, so this seemed like a good time to post some photos from my visit to his museum last February. The museum captures so much of what made him special as an artist and innovator, as well as showing work that is less familiar. Below are a few selections.
One favorite was the recreation of his installation Silver Clouds. Museum guests can walk into a room filled with fans and silver helium filled balloons.
Silver Clouds was part of Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable (EPI) a series of multimedia events organized by him and Paul Morrissey.
The museum provided this wonderful quote from Warhol about the work-
“I don’t paint anymore, I gave it up about a year ago and just do movies now. I could do two things at the same time but movies are more exciting. Painting was just a phase I went through. But I’m doing some floating sculpture now: silver rectangles that I blow up and that float.”
—Andy Warhol, 1966
Of course he did go back to painting, and the museum had many examples on view including a room with work from his Skulls series, and work from his experimental Oxidation paintings for the temporary exhibition Altered States, still on view.
On one of the floors is The Archives Study Center. There, behind glass, are some of Warhol’s Time Capsules- boxes he filled with a wide variety of items, sealed and put into storage. The museum is still working to catalogue some of these items.
Before you enter that room you encounter the mounted Great Dane, “Champion Ador Tipp Topp (“Cecil”)”, that Warhol acquired at an antique store after being told he belonged to famous director Cecil B. DeMille. It remained in his office until his death.
Warhol’s Exploding Plastic Inevitable, mentioned above, also featured musical performances by The Velvet Underground and Nico. The song below, I’ll Be Your Mirror, is from their debut album which Warhol designed the cover for. He also managed the group and was responsible for Nico’s presence on the album. You can see his footage of her trimming her bangs in the video below.
Until next time, I’ll be thinking about what is worth saving for the future, incorporating dreams into art, and trying to stay cool near a pool when I can!